what a woman who could have joined the D.A.R. has learned about the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" by just paying attention and NOT keeping her mouth shut...

Sunday, November 04, 2012

Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet

I've been thinking about whether or not I'd like to post something just before the election, but for weeks now, I've known what I was going to do. And this is it. I'm not going to campaign. I'm not going to tell you what I think about who. I'm not going to outline anybody's shortcomings or castigate anyone for not being the person I think we need or deserve. I'm just going to post part of Malcolm X's famous speech on the ballot or the bullet.

I'm not going to post the whole thing because, while I am in agreement with the whole thing, I don't want people to get distracted from his major point. And I have updated his statistics because I think that what he says is as pertinent today as it was in 1964.

What you do on Tuesday is up to you. But remember: it's the ballot or the bullet.

"The Ballot or the Bullet"A Speech by Malcolm XIf we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're
going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet. It's one or the
other…It isn't that time is running out – time has run out!I'm not a politician, not even a student of politics; in fact, I'm not a
student of much of anything. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican, and I
don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans, there'd be
no problem. As long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet. Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit
at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a
diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of
what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being
born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you
American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments
to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in
Washington, D.C….They don't have to pass civil-rights legislation to make an
[immigrant] an American. No, I'm not an American. I'm one of the [42 million] Black people who are
the victims of Americanism. One of the [42 million] Black people who are the
victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I'm not standing
here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a
flag-waver – no, not I. I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I
see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; I
see an American nightmare.So it’s time…to wake up…It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot
or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get
on out of the country; you should get back in the cotton patch; you should get
back in the alley. They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the
Negro gets nothing in return. All they did when they got to Washington was give
a few big Negroes big jobs. Those big Negroes didn't need big jobs, they
already had jobs. That's camouflage, that's trickery, that's treachery,
window-dressing.

You take the people who are in this
audience right now. They're poor. We're all poor as individuals. Our weekly
salary individually amounts to hardly anything. But if you take the salary of
everyone in here collectively, it'll fill up a whole lot of baskets. It's a lot
of wealth. If you can collect the wages of just these people right here for a year,
you'll be rich -- richer than rich. When you look at it like that, think how
rich Uncle Sam had to become, not with this handful, but millions of Black
people. Your and my mother and father, who didn't work an eight-hour shift, but
worked from "can't see" in the morning until "can't see" at
night, and worked for nothing, making the White man rich, making Uncle Sam
rich. This is our investment. This is our contribution, our blood.

Not only did we give of our free
labor, we gave of our blood. Every time he had a call to arms, we were the
first ones in uniform. We died on every battlefield the White man had. We have
made a greater sacrifice than anybody who's standing up in America today. We
have made a greater contribution and have collected less. Civil rights, for
those of us whose philosophy is Black nationalism, means: "Give it to us
now. Don't wait for next year. Give it to us yesterday, and that's not fast
enough."

I might stop right here to point out
one thing. Whenever you're going after something that belongs to you, anyone
who's depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal. Understand that.
Whenever you are going after something that is yours, you are within your legal
rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any effort to deprive you
of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal. And this was
pointed out by the Supreme Court decision. It outlawed segregation.

Which means segregation is against
the law. Which means a segregationist is breaking the law. A segregationist is
a criminal. You can't label him as anything other than that. And when you
demonstrate against segregation, the law is on your side. The Supreme Court is
on your side.

Now, who is it that opposes you in
carrying out the law? The police department itself. With police dogs and clubs.
Whenever you demonstrate against segregation, whether it is segregated
education, segregated housing, or anything else, the law is on your side, and
anyone who stands in the way is not the law any longer. They are breaking the
law; they are not representatives of the law. Any time you demonstrate against
segregation and a man has the audacity to put a police dog on you, kill that
dog, kill him, I'm telling you, kill that dog. I say it, if they put me in jail
tomorrow, kill that dog. Then you'll put a stop to it. Now, if these White
people in here don't want to see that kind of action, get down and tell the
mayor to tell the police department to pull the dogs in. That's all you have to
do. If you don't do it, someone else will.

If you don't take this kind of
stand, your little children will grow up and look at you and think
"shame." If you don't take an uncompromising stand, I don't mean go
out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless
you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent
with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane,
and I'm not responsible for what I do. And that's the way every Negro should
get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within
your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in.
But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by
equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

But the United Nations has what's
known as the charter of human rights; it has a committee that deals in human
rights. You may wonder why all of the atrocities that have been committed in
Africa and in Hungary and in Asia, and in Latin America are brought before the
UN, and the Negro problem is never brought before the UN. This is part of the
conspiracy. This old, tricky blue eyed liberal who is supposed to be your and
my friend, supposed to be in our corner, supposed to be subsidizing our
struggle, and supposed to be acting in the capacity of an adviser, never tells
you anything about human rights. They keep you wrapped up in civil rights. And
you spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know
there's a human-rights tree on the same floor.

When you expand the civil-rights
struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black
man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the
General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only
level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you
under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his
pocket. Civil rights means you're asking Uncle Sam to treat you right. Human
rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given
rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this
earth. And any time any one violates your human rights, you can take them to
the world court.

Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with
blood, dripping with the blood of the Black man in this country. He's the
earth's number-one hypocrite. He has the audacity -- yes, he has -- imagine him
posing as the leader of the free world. The free world! And you over here singing
"We Shall Overcome." Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of
human rights. Take it into the United Nations, where our African brothers can
throw their weight on our side, where our Asian brothers can throw their weight
on our side, where our Latin-American brothers can throw their weight on our
side, and where [1 and a quarter billion] Chinamen are sitting there waiting to
throw their weight on our side.

Let the world know how bloody his
hands are. Let the world know the hypocrisy that's practiced over here. Let it
be the ballot or the bullet. Let him know that it must be the ballot or the
bullet.

When you take your case to
Washington, D.C., you're taking it to the criminal who's responsible; it's like
running from the wolf to the fox. They're all in cahoots together. They all
work political chicanery and make you look like a chump before the eyes of the
world. Here you are walking around in America, getting ready to be drafted and
sent abroad, like a tin soldier, and when you get over there, people ask you
what are you fighting for, and you have to stick your tongue in your cheek. No,
take Uncle Sam to court, take him before the world.

By ballot I only mean freedom. Don't
you know…that the ballot is more important than the dollar? Can I prove it?
Yes. Look in the UN. There are poor nations in the UN; yet those poor nations
can get together with their voting power and keep the rich nations from making
a move. They have one nation -- one vote, everyone has an equal vote. And when
those brothers from Asia, and Africa and the darker parts of this earth get
together, their voting power is sufficient to hold Sam in check. Or Russia in
check. Or some other section of the earth in check. So, the ballot is most
important.

You're dealing with a man whose bias
and prejudice are making him lose his mind, his intelligence, every day. He's
frightened. He looks around and sees what's taking place on this earth, and he
sees that the pendulum of time is swinging in your direction. The dark people
are waking up. They're losing their fear of the White man. No place where he's
fighting right now is he winning. Everywhere he's fighting, he's fighting
someone your and my complexion. And they're beating him. He can't win any more.
He's won his last battle…

The political philosophy of Black
nationalism means that the Black man should control the politics and the
politicians in his own community; no more. The Black man in the Black community
has to be re-educated into the science of politics so he will know what
politics is supposed to bring him in return. Don't be throwing out any ballots.
A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target,
and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.

The political philosophy of Black nationalism
is being taught in the Christian church. It's being taught in the NAACP. It's
being taught in Congress on Racial Equality meetings. It's being taught in
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee meetings. It's being taught in Muslim
meetings. It's being taught where nothing but atheists and agnostics come
together. It's being taught everywhere. Black people are fed up with the
dillydallying, pussyfooting, compromising approach that we've been using toward
getting our freedom. We want freedom now, but we're not going to get it saying
"We Shall Overcome." We've got to fight until we overcome.

The economic philosophy of Black
nationalism is pure and simple. It only means that we should control the economy
of our community. Why should White people be running all the stores in our
community? Why should White people be running the banks of our community? Why
should the economy of our community be in the hands of the White man? Why? If a
Black man can't move his store into a White community, you tell me why a White
man should move his store into a Black community. The philosophy of Black
nationalism involves a re-education program in the Black community in regards
to economics. Our people have to be made to see that any time you take your
dollar out of your community and spend it in a community where you don't live,
the community where you live will get poorer and poorer, and the community
where you spend your money will get richer and richer.

Then you wonder why where you live
is always a ghetto or a slum area. And where you and I are concerned, not only
do we lose it when we spend it out of the community, but the White man has got
all our stores in the community tied up; so that though we spend it in the
community, at sundown the man who runs the store takes it over across town
somewhere. He's got us in a vise. So the economic philosophy of Black
nationalism means in every church, in every civic organization, in every
fraternal order, it's time now for our people to become conscious of the
importance of controlling the economy of our community. If we own the stores,
if we operate the businesses, if we try and establish some industry in our own
community, then we're developing to the position where we are creating
employment for our own kind. Once you gain control of the economy of your own
community, then you don't have to picket and boycott and beg some cracker
downtown for a job in his business.

The social philosophy of Black
nationalism only means that we have to get together and remove the evils, the
vices, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other evils that are destroying the
moral fiber of our community. We ourselves have to lift the level of our
community, the standard of our community to a higher level, make our own
society beautiful so that we will be satisfied in our own social circles and
won't be running around here trying to knock our way into a social circle where
we're not wanted. So I say, in spreading a gospel such as Black nationalism, it
is not designed to make the Black man re-evaluate the White man – you know him
already – but to make the Black man re-evaluate himself. Don't change the White
man's mind – you can't change his mind, and that whole thing about appealing to
the moral conscience of America – America’s conscience is bankrupt. She lost
all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience.

They don't know what morals are.
They don't try and eliminate an evil because it's evil, or because it's
illegal, or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens
their existence. So you're wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience
of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a conscience, he'd straighten this
thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to
change the White man's mind. We have to change our own mind. You can't change
his mind about us. We've got to change our own minds about each other. We have
to see each other with new eyes. We have to see each other as brothers and
sisters. We have to come together with warmth so we can develop unity and
harmony that's necessary to get this problem solved ourselves. How can we do
this? How can we avoid jealousy? How can we avoid the suspicion and the
divisions that exist in the community? I'll tell you how…

It's time for you and me to stop
sitting in this country, letting some cracker senators, Northern crackers and
Southern crackers, sit there in Washington, D.C., and come to a conclusion in
their mind that you and I are supposed to have civil rights. There's no White
man going to tell me anything about my rights. Brothers and sisters, always
remember, if it doesn't take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations
to give freedom to the White man, it is not necessary for legislation or
proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to give freedom to the Black man. You
let that White man know, if this is a country of freedom, let it be a country
of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it....

If I die in the morning, I'll die
saying one thing: the ballot or the bullet, the ballot or the bullet.It's the ballot or the bullet.Thank you.
___________________________________________________________NOTE: If you'd like to hear the entire speech as delivered by Malcolm X himself, you can do so here.

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ABOUT ME

I'm a writer, speaker, and sociologist who's made a life's work out of explaining exactly what I see happening in the world. Some people like it. Some people don't. But the ball is still the ball, no matter what kind of spin is put on it.